“I don’t know. But those seventeen minutes are giving me pause.”
“I’ve known Hector many, many years—longer than I’ve known my church custodian even. He was a good man. A flawed man, perhaps. But a good man.”
“What do you mean ‘flawed’?”
Delgado shook his head. “I’m a priest, Jimmy. I will not speak against the dead. I can tell you this however: if he made any bad choices, they were done out of love and loyalty—never in hatred or anger.”
“But—seventeen minutes,” Vega repeated.
“Surely you must realize that given Hector’s—immi-gration status—he was panicked about speaking to the police.”
“And you think that’s all it was?”
Delgado didn’t answer. Vega tried a different tack.
“There’s a picture the press has been circulating.” Vega took out his cell phone and scrolled through it until he came to the photograph. “Ponce had this snapshot in his hand when he was—when I shot him,” said Vega. “Have you seen it?”
“I’m trying to hold myself back from all the details of this case right now,” said Delgado.
“I understand. But it would be helpful if you could tell me anything about the picture.”
Delgado squinted at the screen. He pointed to the man standing on the right. “That’s definitely Hector when he was younger. I know he had a younger brother and son who died a long time ago. That could be them.” Delgado handed back the phone. “I’m guessing you aren’t allowed to speak to the family.”
“I’m not even allowed to do what I’m doing now,” Vega confessed. “I’m just trying to see if there’s a connection. You’re telling me Ponce was a good man. Yet he broke into a celebrity’s house and tried to rob him. And my mother was beaten to death and robbed in the same building where he was the super. What would you think if you were me?”
“I would ask the same questions,” said Delgado. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any answers. We’re all capable of great deeds and terrible sins. Hector loved his two sons by Alma very much. And yet he abandoned his other children in Honduras. It went against everything he believed in. And yet he did it. Why? I don’t know.”
“If he could do that,” said Vega, “maybe he did this, too.” Vega rubbed his sweaty palms along his thighs. The adrenaline from last night had worn off but he still felt like a meth addict in withdrawal. He broke out in a sweat easily. He couldn’t sit still for long. He got up and paced the room.
“It’s tearing me up to think Ponce was right in my mother’s building—all this time—and I never questioned him,” said Vega. “I’m sorry to bring this to you but I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“You always have a place to go,” said Delgado. He spread his palms and gazed up at the brown water stains on the acoustical tile ceiling. “God is listening, Jimmy. Make your peace with Him. Ask for His guidance and forgiveness.” Delgado rose and made the sign of the cross.
“How can I just make my peace with God when I don’t know who killed her?”
“The peace you need to make has nothing to do with your mother’s life, Jimmy. It has to do with your own.”
In the narthex, Vega found Joy texting. “Let’s go home,” he said to her. The Bronx felt too weighted with memory.
Joy glanced up from her cell phone. Her eyes traveled past her father to the front doors of the church. Her jaw muscles had a clenched look to them.
“Did you know that Ruben Tate-Rivera just finished holding a press conference at Lita’s building? With Hector Ponce’s widow?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“He wants the district attorney to put you on trial.”
“He wants the DA to convene a grand jury, Joy. Not a trial. Not yet, anyway. Can we talk about this on the way home?” Vega zipped up his jacket. Joy stayed rooted in place.
“Dad? He’s calling on his supporters to march in protest.”
“Okay, so they’re marching. That’s their choice.”
“The march just kicked off from Lita’s building. That’s right around the corner from where we parked.”
Chapter 11
“Okay. Stay here. In the church. With Father Delgado,” Vega told Joy. “You’re safe in the church. I’ll get my truck and come back for you—”
“But I want to come with you,” said Joy. She sounded so young all of a sudden. All that charcoal eyeliner—even her rose tattoo—did nothing to hide the little girl she still was beneath.
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes, chispita. Surely you can stay here by yourself for twenty minutes?”
“Why can’t I come with you?”